


Moral Dilemmas

by AdrianaintheSnow



Series: Snow Dice Rolls [4]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, BIG OOF, Both Patton and Remus are in my opinion sympathetic, Except it's not pre anything because then I broke it, It's more pre-romantic relationship, M/M, Multi, Not even close to happening, Now with some hope for recovery eventually, One Tasteless Sex Joke, The focus ended up mostly being on intruality btw, They aren't exactly precious babies, Virgil gets a bit more of a part in the second chapter now, almost major character death, and very bad things happen, but other people might read it differently so go with caution, death mentioned, murder mentioned, no happy ending, suicide mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22586962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdrianaintheSnow/pseuds/AdrianaintheSnow
Summary: “But that doesn’t make any sense!” he yelled.“Patton,” Remus said evenly.“It doesn’t!” he screamed turning on him viciously. “There’s a big difference between not being sad someone’s dead and… and… and no! No! I wouldn’t be okay with seeing someone I hated die. I wouldn’t!”“Yes, you would,” Remus said, standing up himself. He pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You would! And you know you would! Do you think you are the only one who can get a read on another side when functions cross? Those thoughts in your head are my domain and I knew exactly what you were feeling when I asked that question!”Virgil was forcibly summoned immediately, eyes wide.Patton and Remus have a philosophical discussion and then will have to deal with the fall out.
Relationships: Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders & Morality | Patton Sander & Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders/Morality | Patton Sander/Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders/Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Snow Dice Rolls [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1610857
Comments: 44
Kudos: 181





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, just a warning to people who have read the last 3 of these, on all of those I rolled fluff or humor (that turned into fluff). This is… not that. This is angst, and it doesn’t end happily.
> 
> See [here](https://snowdice.tumblr.com/post/190198404135/roll-the-dice-event) for the rules of the event I'm doing.
> 
> This is an interesting event because that ship tag didn't even pop up when I typed it all the way in.

Patton and Remus were as different as two people (who were in reality just pieces of one person) could be. They stood opposed most of the time: morality and a person’s darkest imaginings. Their functions did not often overlap, in fact, they usually pushed and pulled against one another. They almost never ended up working together with a few exceptions. Most notably, when Thomas had only one question on his mind.

Why?

See, Remus was not only for crafting darkness from within. He also helped to process darkness that came to them from the outside world. He was… a source of empathy though, ironically, Patton, who as the hub of emotions was usually the one to lean into empathy in their daily lives, flinched at the thought of this empathy. Remus was… he was the empathy Patton didn’t touch: the empathy he could not touch as morality. He was the understanding of things that for Patton could not be understood.

For about a week now, the two of them had been working together almost constantly. Because, well, Patton had the question and Remus… Remus at least claimed to have the answer.

Why? Why would someone _do_ something like that? How could anyone do that? Just… just why?

The others had processed it or, in the case of Virgil, hunkered down to ignore it as much as possible.

But morality could not put it away.

Remus had been… well, he had been rather patient for someone so prone to impulsivity. They’d spoken at length about the same topic again and again, like a scratched record. These talks usually went fine. Though, there were on occasion problems. These problems usually came from another rare overlap in their functions: anger. Not frustration or exasperation. Anger. Blind and violent anger.

Patton, as much as he liked to lean into the softer emotions most of the time, also embodied the harsher ones and, while Remus was not as emotional as Patton, the second Patton threw down the gauntlet, he was all over it.

This was the point where Virgil would inevitably be accidently yanked into it, summoned harshly from his music or phone game or whatever he’d been using to block them out. From there, it usually could be deescalated. Virgil knew them both quite well at this point, and he was good at distracting Remus and at appealing to Patton’s softer bits. After all, it made Patton’s heart ache seeing the lines around his eyes and the shake to his lips. Not to mention, when Virgil got unwillingly involved, that meant that Thomas was being overwhelmed and they all knew they needed to stop, decompress, and come back later.

Usually at least.

“I just don’t get it,” Patton said once again, shaking his head. His leg was pulled up under him and he was facing Remus on the opposite end of the light side’s living room couch.

Patton watched Remus’ face as he thought, calm and serious where it often was not. It was interesting seeing him like this, and Patton couldn’t help but feel his chest tighten in affection. He was the only one willing to sit here and talk to Patton about this again and again despite the fact that everyone else had already moved past it in their own ways. Even when they were fighting the past few days, Patton felt his affection for the other side blossom because, even if they were yelling, at least he was being heard. “It’s like if someone you hated died,” Remus explained. “You wouldn’t be sad about that, right?”

Patton frowned. “I don’t hate anyone.”

“Everyone hates someone,” Remus scoffed with a sharp type of knowing smile that made Patton shift uncomfortably. Before Patton could protest, he continued. “If there was someone truly horrible: a serial killer who enjoyed torturing a bunch of innocent people before murdering them in cold blood or someone who committed atrocities like genocide, then you wouldn’t be sad when you learned they were dead.”

Patton opened his mouth and then closed it, biting his tongue. “Maybe,” he admitted softly.

“See,” Remus said, almost gentle. “It’s like that, but instead of only about people who are bad, it’s everyone.”

Patton tried. He really did, but he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t make it click. He hopped to his feet and started to pace. “But that doesn’t make any sense!” he yelled.

“Patton,” Remus said evenly.

“It doesn’t!” he screamed turning on him viciously. “There’s a big difference between not being sad someone’s dead and… and… and no! No! I wouldn’t be okay with seeing someone I hated die. I wouldn’t!”

“Yes, you would,” Remus said, standing up himself. He pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You would! And you know you would! Do you think you are the only one who can get a read on another side when functions cross? Those thoughts in your head are my domain and I knew exactly what you were feeling when I asked that question!”

Virgil was forcibly summoned immediately, eyes wide.

“ **NO**!” Patton yelled, his voice warping and sounding more like shattering glass than speech.

They had to be physically dragged apart by the other sides that day.

It was two days later when they were once again in the same room, both finding themselves in the room they stored board games in at the same time.

Patton had barely managed to get out a sheepish, “hey,” before Virgil popped up.

“Nope,” he said. “You two are not allowed to interact for at least another 24 hours. Absolutely not.”

“I wasn’t going to try to talk about it,” Patton assured. “We just ran into each other.”

Virgil shifted from side to side nervously. “Pat, there’s a reason for the 72-hour ban.” Patton winced. He knew. He’d sorta… destroyed the light side living room. Roman was still trying to put it back together.

“Eh, it’s alright emo,” Remus said. “Don’t think I’ve got too much fight left in me after all.”

Virgil turned to look at him with a confused frown. “What do you mean?”

“Oh,” he said. “I’m just dying.”

“What?” Patton and Virgil asked.

“Yeah, I actually came down here to return the Exploding Kittens card game before my room disappeared.”

“What are you talking about? Why would you be dying?” Virgil demanded.

“Oh. I think Thomas is just growing beyond me. He’s getting a bit old for dick jokes, and Roman’s stuff is getting more serious. Anything essential from me will probably just get shifted to him or redistributed to everyone else. Kinda like what happened to the figments that appeared sometimes when we were kids.”

Patton gave a chocked, pained sound.

Remus turned to him and gave a flippant wave. “Oh, don’t worry Patty. It wasn’t from the other day. It’s been happening for about a month now. Been getting harder and harder to breathe, weird stomach cramps, all that jizz. Heh jizz.” He shook his head like a dog shaking off water. “Anyway, I woke up about 30 minutes ago with this,” he raised his arm and Patton’s eyes widened, because he could see through it, “it was just the fingers gone then, but it’s made it up to my shoulder now. So, I’m thinking this is probably it.”

“What? No. What?” Virgil asked looking at it, his expression petrified. Patton could only stare in mute horror.

“Yeah, pretty sure once it gets to my head that’ll be it. Like how when you shoot zombies in the brain, and they stop moving. Pew, pew,” he said making a gun with his fingers and miming shooting himself in the head.

Patton could see Virgil start to shake. “No, no, you can’t die. He can’t die Patton.”

“Of course, I can!” Remus replied chipperly, and then made a little pained sound as his entire body glitched out. Patton finally snapped into action when he started to fall, grabbing him and lowering him down slowly to cradle his head in his lap. Virgil fell to his knees next to him.

“Remus please don’t die,” Virgil said, eyes filling with tears. He bent over to press his lips to the other side’s forehead. “You can’t do that to us.”

“You’ll be fine,” Remus said. “Thomas can function without me.”

“That’s not the point,” Patton chocked.

He looked confused. “It’s not?”

“No, it’s not! The problem is you would be dead!” Patton cried. “Please, you can’t die. You can’t. Please, I love you,” he said and pressed a kiss to his cheek like it was one of Roman’s stories and it would somehow fix it.

Remus went rigid at the touch and his face had blanked out suddenly when Patton drew back. “I,” he said vacantly, “don’t have a response to that in my programing.”

Patton sniffed. “What?”

“You weren’t supposed to say that.” Then he closed his eyes and went limp.

“No, no, no, wake up sweetie.”

“Patton,” Virgil said.

“No, no.”

“Patton,” Virgil said a bit harsher. Then he bit out, “It’s not real.”

“What?” Patton croaked.

“ _Remus_ ,” Virgil hissed with so much venom that the lights in the room flickered. He shot out a hand and jerked it up in a summoning motion.

Remus appeared, looking surprised.

“Huh?” Patton said, looking down at the man in his arms.

“Oh, that,” Remus said and waved a hand. The visage in Patton’s arms disappeared, leaving them empty.

Virgil stood slowly, clearly boiling with rage. “Fuck. You.”

Remus blinked a couple of times before looking down at Patton crumpled on the floor and then at Virgil who looked like he could explode. “Why are you upset?” he asked. “You weren’t supposed to be upset. You were supposed to enjoy that.”

“W-why would you think we’d enjoy that?” Patton gasped out.

His expression was rapidly dropping. “Because… because you were confused so I wanted to show you how it would feel. Plus, you’ve been really angry. I thought it’d give you some catharsis. Yah know, let you see me squiggle around in pain for a bit.”

“That was cruel,” Virgil said, his voice starting to waver from anger into heartbreak.

“No,” Remus shook his head. “Not, it’s not. You hate me. It shouldn’t make you feel bad.”

Patton muffled a sob into his hands.

Remus’s eyes went wide and his face looked suddenly horrified. “You don’t… you don’t like me, do you?”

Patton looked at him for a moment more before he simply sunk away.


	2. Ethical Reasoning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now for a sequel like one person asked for.

There was a knock at Logan’s door 30 minutes before Logan would start telling Thomas to go to bed (and then likely be ignored for an hour.) “Have you seen Patton or Virgil today?” Roman asked Logan, leaning against the door frame. He looked exhausted. Usually their features reflected their host’s unless there was something wrong with or straining their functions in particular. Roman’s face was paler than it should be, and the dark circles under his eyes were edging on Virgil’s eyeshadow levels of dark. He’d been struggling to piece together the light side living room after it’s destruction a few days ago. What would usually be a simple task of snapping his fingers, was not in this case. The destruction there was somehow deeper. Roman would fix one thing, turn around, and the destruction would creep back onto the objects he’d just fixed while he was doing something else. He’d just managed to permanently fix the couch and one of the chairs today.

Logan frowned. “I haven’t,” he said.

The met each other’s eyes for a long moment. “Should that be… disturbing?” Roman asked.

Logan shot to his feet. “Oh god. I’ve been distracted all day. What happened?”

“I don’t know, but I haven’t seen anyone but Deceit all day.”

Logan pinched his brow. “We’ll start with Patton.” Roman nodded, but when he turned to leave Logan’s room, he swayed a bit on his feet. Logan grabbed him quickly to steady him with a frown. “I’ll start with Patton,” he corrected. Roman opened his mouth to argue, but Logan cut him off. “No, Roman. You need to rest. You’ve been overworking yourself.” The fact that he didn’t try to dramatically protest told Logan all he needed to know. Logan walked Roman to his room and settled him down onto his bed. The other side was half asleep by the time his head hit the pillow.

“Thanks,” Roman mumbled. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Logan said softly, pulling his blanket up over him. Usually he’d insist he get changed before going to bed, but not tonight. Logan shut off the light and closed the door behind him. Then, he turned and walked a few feet down the hallway.

Logan knocked on Patton’s door. There wasn’t a response, so Logan knocked again, a bit harder. “Patton,” he called. There was shuffling behind the door and then the door opened. Logan went tense before he even saw Patton’s face. The energy from Patton’s room was usually soft and a bit fuzzy around the edges. It had a tendency to make Logan a bit dazed if he wasn’t careful, but the energy coming from the room now was vastly different. It was sharp and cold and tinged with something that echoed oddly in Logan’s chest. Patton was not in his normal attire, instead he was in a large hoody that Logan thought might have been stolen from Virgil at some point, and he had clearly been crying, likely for a long while.

“Are you okay?” Logan asked.

“Yes,” he said blankly.

Logan pursed his lips. “Allow me to rephrase. What _is_ wrong?” Patton didn’t respond. Instead, he slammed the door in Logan’s face. Logan blinked at the closed door and reached up to knock again. “Patton!” he called and waited. “Patton open the door this instant!” He did not.

Eventually, Logan gave up knocking on Patton’s door. Instead he moved down to Virgil’s door. He knocked twice and Virgil opened his door a crack, peaking out. When he saw it was Logan, he pulled the earbuds out of his ears and opened the door a bit more. “Yeah?” he asked.

“What’s wrong with Patton?” Logan asked.

“I’m not his keeper,” Virgil said. The non-answer combined with the fact that he seemed more spiteful than concerned at the question told Logan that he definitely did know what was wrong with Patton.

“Virgil,” Logan warned. “Just tell me what is wrong so I can figure out how to deal with it.”

“It’s not your problem,” Virgil said. “It shouldn’t be my problem either and I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fine but tell me what the problem is so I can fix it.”

“It isn’t something you can fix. It’s not fixable.”

“I should at least know-”

“No, you shouldn’t.” He shut the door in Logan’s face.

“Virgil,” Logan ground out through the door. There was no respond. “Virgil!” After a short pause, he heard the song “Welcome to the Black Parade” start up behind the door. When he tried to knock again, the volume was turned up to the point where Logan couldn’t hear himself speak.

Logan walked to the dark side of the mindscape with clipped steps. Deceit looked up at him with a raised eyebrow as he passed the little sitting room, but Logan paid him no mind. He walked directly up to Remus’s room and knocked loudly on the door. It swung open and Remus gave him a confused look. “Wha-?”

“Patton won’t leave his room and Virgil refuses to tell me what happened despite the fact that he clearly knows,” Logan said. “Since you are the remaining member of the trio that has been causing the unrest in the past two weeks, I imagined you might have an explanation.”

“Ah yes, the evil one. Always causing problems.”

“I did not say you were the cause of the problem,” Logan said in frustration. “In fact, if I recall correctly, which I of course do, it was Patton who threw the couch at you last time.”

Remus gave him a sardonic half smile, but then it quickly faded. “It was me though,” he said. “It was my fault.”

“What happened Remus?” Remus looked at him for a moment and then slammed the door in his face. “Okay,” Logan growled at the closed door. “I’ve had about enough of this.”

“Patton,” Logan said, knocking on the side’s door the next morning. “Patton, I need you to come to the living room.” He paused, waiting for a response. “ _Right now._ ”

“I don’t want to talk, Logan,” Patton’s clipped voice said from the other side of the door.

“Patton open this door.” There was no response. “ _Patton._ ” He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, giving up for the moment.

There was a shrill scream from down the hall which Logan identified as Virgil’s. Apparently, Roman had decided that negotiation wasn’t cutting it. Logan frowned at the door in front of him. Fair enough. The screaming persisted as it moved closer. Soon Roman rounded the corner, Virgil tossed over his shoulder.

“ **Let go of me!** ” he yelled, kicking. Roman just gritted his teeth.

Apparently, the commotion was enough to draw Patton’s attention, because his door finally opened, and he stepped outside of it. He looked even worse than the last time Logan had seen him. His hair was a mess and Logan assumed he had not gotten any sleep the night before.

“ _What_ is going on?” he asked tiredly. Logan took his chance and jumped forward to grab his arm.

Patton barely reacted. He just glanced at Logan’s hand and then back up at his face. “You and Roman can probably contain Virgil indefinitely,” Patton said coolly, “but how long can you contain me?”

Logan didn’t back down from the threat in his eyes. “Long enough,” he said simply. They watched each other for a long moment and then Patton bent.

“Fine,” he spat and ripped his arm away. He stormed off to the living room.

Virgil started wiggling in Roman’s grip again. “I refuse to be a part of this!”

“Too bad,” Roman answered. Logan followed Patton towards the living room, Roman on his heels. By the time they’d arrived, Patton had sat himself down on the chair Roman had fixed the day before. Roman dumped Virgil unceremoniously on the couch. He hissed but didn’t attempt to get away from them. Roman moved to stand by one of the doors, his arms crossed.

“Fine,” Virgil said. “What do you want?”

“We will need to wait a moment,” Logan told him. He gave him a look of confusion before the sound of the other two participants’ voices could be heard. Apparently, Deceit was better at persuasion than Logan and Roman had been because it didn’t sound like an argument.

“Oh, fuck this,” Virgil hissed, putting his hood up and pulling the strings so most of his face was hidden. He tucked himself into a ball on the couch. Well. At least he wasn’t trying to run away.

Patton didn’t even react, even as they appeared in the doorway opposite of Roman.

“What are we…?” Remus trailed off when his eyes caught on Patton, and he immediately tried to bolt. Deceit stepped in his way.

“We all need to talk,” Logan said.

“As the source of bad ideas,” Remus said. “I can tell you that _this_ is a bad idea.”

“One of you is going to tell me what happened,” Logan informed them. “Patton?” Nothing. “Virgil?” Virgil shook his head from where his face was faceplanted into the couch. “We aren’t leaving until someone tells me. Remus?”

“I’m a horrible person and I fucked up because that’s all I can do.”

Logan sighed. “That seems like a very emotionally charged statement,” he pointed out. “Care to elaborate?”

“Let’s just say, even if he,” he pointed at Patton, “didn’t hate me before, he certainly does now.”

“Shut up!” Patton finally spoke, though more accurately he shrieked. He hopped to his feet. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! You are not allowed to make any assumptions about my feeling for the rest of our lives!”

There was a beat of silence.

“What on Earth happened?” Logan asked.

“You’re not a part of this!” Both Remus and Patton said at the same time, their voices echoing dangerously through the Mindscape. Logan shut his mouth, eyes wide.

“But I am,” Virgil said softly. The crackling energy that had been building in the room seemed to deflate suddenly. “The two of you just keep dragging me into this again and again and you just won’t stop screaming at each other no matter what I do.”

Remus looked away from them all and Patton’s shoulders drooped. “I’m sorry, Virgil,” Patton said.

Virgil scoffed and both of them flinched. Logan was just happy that Virgil was apparently able to calm the situation a bit. “Because if anyone has the right to scream at this point, it’s **ME**!” …Or maybe not.

Patton rounded on him suddenly and viciously, going from contrite to infuriated in a moment. “You know what Virgil. Why don’t you just run away and ignore the problem like usual?”

“… Well that’s a new one,” Roman said.

Logan could physically feel Virgil’s aura darkening. “Oh!” he spat. “You’re mad because I’ve been running away?! Fine! You don’t want me to ignore the problem, huh?! Well, fine because you know what?! I can scream too! I can have a temper tantrum like a toddler and tear apart the mindscape too!!”

“At least I’m not avoiding the problem like _everyone_ else here!”

“What the fuck do you want us to do _Morality_? There’s nothing to do. Do you want me to freak out? Because, oh, I can **freak out**.” The chair Patton had been sitting on earlier literally burst into purple flames. Patton didn’t even flinch. Roman yelped and did his best to contain the fire, but every time it would flicker out, it would just restart a moment later.

“Okay,” Logan tried to interview. “Maybe you two should…”

“ ** _SHUT UP_**!” they both yelled.

“Everything’s fine,” Deceit tried. Virgil looked over at him and hissed viciously.

“Repressing isn’t going to help anything,” Logan scolded.

“Ah yes because imploding certainly will help. Thank you, _Logic_.” And well, that pissed Logan off but since he seemed to be the only one in control of himself at the moment he didn’t retort.

“Roman,” Logan said evenly. “Do you have any ideas that could solve this?”

“I,” he said. He looked close to tears and was sweating already from trying to keep the fire from spreading, yet it was a losing battle. “I can’t do anything when those two are like this,” he waved his arm at Patton and Virgil who had descended into incoherent arguing.

“We need a therapist,” Remus said quietly, yet everyone stopped to look at him. Patton opened his mouth, but Remus cut him off. “Or we could just kill ourselves.”

“No,” everyone else said at once.

“Well I gave you two solutions,” he said. “Pick one.” The he shoved past Deceit and disappeared into the hallway.

**Author's Note:**

> Well. I didn't know I had that in me. I know it isn't the angstiest angst ever, but I personally always write happy or hopeful endings. Gee. You can visit me at [@snowdice](https://snowdice.tumblr.com/) for things that... aren't this.


End file.
